A.N.: Please review! A petty quarrel turns serious.

Chapter 3

The usual calm silence that accompanied the daytime hours during the late afternoons on weekends in the mansion, results of the students relaxing in their bedrooms or getting ready for their nights, was disturbed with the weight of a bucket of water dropping onto a zen sand garden.

The tranquil warm hue that washed over the mansion and made all things lazy, was stirred with the colors of chaos and an unspoken, nervous and alert buzz that comes from speculations.

Mutants splashed out of their rooms, one right after the other, filing downstairs in an disorderly and unorganized fashion like scattered droplets.

News spread around this mansion fast, like wildfire, only even quicker with the telepathic communication accounted for also.

The older mutants ran down the winding stair case and halted finally when they landed at the elevator panel doors by the back entrance that led down to the medical labs, Black Bird hanger, and various confidential compartments.

The tall lanky figure of Sam Guthrie was soon shoved out of the way by a Wolverine on a rampage.

This one-man rampage was followed quickly by the bristling bundle of blue fur that was Beast hurling himself after Logan, clearing the way as well from students. Hank's white lab coat coattails trailed after him in the air as he pounded on all fours, moving everything in sight, heavy furniture, or lighter people, he did not care, he was plowing the path as fast as a heavy mass like him could and then he was at the elevator door, pressing the right buttons, pushing in the right keys, and scanning his ID card over the glowing blue slot that beeped in recognition. A smattering of blood dotted the ends of his coattails.

Behind Hank, was what quieted the suddenly erupt and buzzing mansion. The sight silenced everyone who had strained their necks to look. As if noticing the bodies they had hauled out of the way for the first time, Logan, panting and snarling in a fit of adrenaline and sweat, blinked, looked around and thundered, "Everyone who wants to pass Fitness 101 with me, better haul ass back to their bedrooms and hope not to show their faces out here again. Understood? This corridor is closed off, as it always is to first level students."

Ororo stood behind Hank quietly, completely somber, and her usual personal affections and contact with the students, tendencies to wave, smile sweetly, or acknowledge them, had faded, as her weathered gray blue eyes were shaded as she looked down worriedly, and completely absent-minded at the mangled and unrecognizable face on the stretcher before her.

Her long white summer gown wrapped around her long sleek form, billowing slightly at her brown toes that peeked out of beaded sandals. Her long white hair twisted around her back and brushed briefly over his bloody head, staining the pure white satin slowly from the tips.

Retreating students slowly stopped as another loud sound disrupted the tension, the banging of a hollow oaken door, rushing feet tapping on marble tiles, and then the whirlwind of red hair, crinkly bags, and a box of take out, that was Jean Grey, hurried in, announcing her arrival by rushing towards the closing elevator doors. "Where's Scott! I came as soon as I heard, where is he?"

A motionless Kitty pointed towards the steel doors that were coming together, and in an impulsive act, Jean lunged forward with her arm in front, threw her hand out and shot a telekinetic bolt that stopped the doors from closing.

She pried both her hands between the wedge of the doors sliding close and frantically called out, "Scott!"

Scott did not come out of the elevator, instead, a furious Logan jumped out from the wedge and with an arm, swept Jean to the side.

He roared, "NOW IS NOT THE TIME! WE NEED TO GET HIM SOME HELP! STAY OUT OF THIS AND GO UPSTAIRS YOUNG LADY!"

Panting ferociously, and looking levelly at Jean whose shocked and wet green eyes instantly hardened, Logan pointed towards the stairs and heaved, "Go."

Planting both sandaled feet to the marble tile floor, Jean stubbornly stayed rooted. She said calmly with a sharp reprimand to her youthful voice, "Mr. Logan, you need to get out of the way. I cut my date short with Duncan and had him drop me here as fast as I could! Please don't tell me that I can't see Scott, my b-best friend. You know he'd want to see me, I need to be there for him!"

Logan shook his head gruffly, "You don't understand, he's getting medical attention, he'll be fine, and when he is, you'll get to see him."

Jean leaned forward and demanded, "What happened!"

Wolverine shook his head again, "Once this resides, you'll find out, but for Chrissakes, Jean, would you be a damn leader and help us out a bit, it's gonna unsettle the kids to see you like this, just go up and calm them, reassure them, all the fuss is unnecessary and disorderly."

Tears burst forward from the clear green eyes of Jean Grey. "Oh Logan! How can I reassure them when even I'm not? I have no clue what's going on! I don't know what to think! My Scott could be dead for all I know! I can't hear his thoughts, Logan!"

To keep what will he had to not slash the air in front of him, and roll his eyes or laugh inappropriately, Logan snarled, "Jean. Get. Out. of. Here."

After a few moments of silence and stubborn glares, Jean left with a final huff and stomped away, up the stairs to the girls' wing. The layer of students that coated the walls at the top of the stairs, shifted in unison as eyes followed her and shushed whispers.

Had Jean been able to hear Scott's thoughts still, in his unconscious state, she would have heard his last ones framed and running around in his vacant head like a broken recorder.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. Should not have said that. Why did I say those things? Said such nasty things to her...Stupid stupid, shouldn't have said such nasty things to her. Dammit. Wait, what the-"

However, Jean now upstairs and furiously sobbing on the phone to her sister Sarah, and the cause of hushed appalled whispers of, "Did you see?...Can't believe she was with Duncan...the nerve?...Poor Scott...She's so demanding...imagine!...Why is she even here...yeah right..." (Segmented whispers), and unable to hear the thoughts of the boy she so claimed to love.

As the day's excitement and scare settled down, the students cautiously peeked their heads out their doors to see if it was alright to come out.

Approaching dinnertime, another clamor downstairs caught their curious attentions, and a question that had not even been thought of due to lack of care, was, Where is Emma Frost?

She had certainly not shown up when all the other students were rushing to see what was the matter. This easily escaped their buzzing notice though, since Frost was rather elusive, exclusive, and not well-liked in company.

Typical of her to show up oblivious and uncaring of the mansion's events.

Kitty, Jubilee, Kurt, and Amara who were munching on the carpet of Kitty's bedroom floor with popcorn and pop rocks, immediately silenced themselves, sat up straighter, and quirked their ears when Emma Frost's lazily elegant designer shoe footsteps did not sound up the stairs and down the girls' wing to her room.

After a few more moments of silence, Kurt widened his eyes, held a finger to his lips, staring at the girls, then enveloped them with his arms and disappeared in a flash of smoke and static.

He reappeared with the girls uncomfortably in tow at the foot of the basement levels' secret emergency escape stairs diagonal from the elevators.

A couple doors down, was the medical lab and a big open gridded window to some of the clinic rooms.

Tiptoeing, the small group made their way through the walls thanks to Kitty's help, and landed in the medical wing, where an unconscious Scott was on a respirator, head bandaged up and nearly unrecognizable. His glasses had been removed, and in place, heavy bindings of some sort around his eyes. Pieces of solid ruby could be seen poking out from underneath, being bound to his eye sockets.

Next to him, Jean had finally captured her place and was cradling his idle hand in hers, rubbing it against her cheek.

The footsteps that had been absent upstairs, made their way into the wing much to everyones' surprise.

Hank, who had just emerged from a door off to the side, was immediately thrown a question from Jean who spat out, "What is she doing here?"

Emma Frost, not pausing from her gait, carefully walked up to the bed and stopped at the foot.

She flicked her eyes down to the side momentarily, sweeping for a millisecond upon the body and face of the boy whose guts she hated.

Then, she said in a monotone voice, "I heard what happened and wanted to see how the team leader was doing."

Jean choked, "team leader?"

Hank raised his furry paw to silence anymore from Jean and looked seriously at Emma, "Yes, Ms. Frost, it's very touching of you to come down and visit, of course I don't know how you got past the authorization to get down here on your own, but regardless, thank you for coming by.

Emma set down about a dozen paper shopping bags with various emblems and logos of designers that were almost costly to even name drop.

The calm in the air about her was like dry electric crackling underneath the smooth exterior.

Was it...frazzled?

Jean squinted, "Where were you? Surely you would have heard announcements or just thoughts of the commotion here."

Emma paused, opened her mouth, then looked back coldly at the body in the bed and only addressed Hank.

"I came...as fast as I could possibly come after a brief shopping urge. Retail therapy...it's my go-to. I assure you that I did not do this to him..." she spoke quietly, "I did not hit him, it was all an accident."

Jean's jaw dropped, and the few nosy snoops all but fell through the wall they were lodged in.

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